Because I'm writing a story about "tortitude" for Catster.com and I want to help make your kitty famous. If anyone has ever dealt with a whole lot of cats, like in a vet's office or at a shelter, and has an opinion about whether tortoiseshell cats have unique personalities, I want to talk to you too!

_________________"No one with hair so soft and glossy could ever be bad at anything." - Tofulish

I have a 16-year-old tortie named Moose and she's awesome. We used to have 4 cats (all around the same age - bad move) and she is the lone survivor. She licks my husband's head every night when he is trying to sleep.

I have a tortie! Her name is Tori, she's 14 now and has been a wacky cat all her life, ever since I rescued her as a kitten running down the street with her two siblings. There are eight cats under my roof right now, and she has always been a standout. I have another cat who is a dilute tortie-tabby (i.e., she just looks grey), and she, too, has a distinctly vivacious personality.

Torties are awesome but they definitely have attitude. We used to have a vet come to the shelter once every few weeks to do vaccines and blood draws. No one wanted to be the one to restrain the torties and the calicos, because they do not go down without a fight!

our tortie is named AK - that's short for angry kitty. i found her on the road in our neighborhood and when i got out of the car to pick her up she ran into a storm drain. so i stuck my hand into the storm drain and she bit me and wouldn't let go. so i took her home and ever since she's lived with us. she's still kinda feral (5 years later), but she stays inside with our other 2 rescue kittehs. she's finally kind of warmed up to me, but she adores my spouse the most. he calls her his little lap kitteh. torties fo 'sho have attitude - at least the ones i've known. they're tough and they don't take shiitake and they're so awesome!

I have a tortie! Daphne is renowned for being my most stereotypically cat-like cat. She's her own girl who only wants affection on her own schedule. But she is an angel at the vet, and hopelessly in love with my other female cat, Chloe.

I have a tortie... named Lola. I realized after I started typing that this is more of a ramble :)

Upon our first vet visit after we got her, the vet said 'that cat is not good'. She was so distraught by the exam, shots, etc that they took her into the back room to exam her and you could hear her yowling. That has set the stage for the past 5 1/2 years :) I should also note that she is a lot better at the vets offices now, but that first vet visit was a doozie.

She was our first pet, so we were a little nervous. She didn't eat or sleep for the first few days we got her, we were extremely worried about her but all she wanted to do was play, play, play. She really likes hiding and attacking, her favorite thing is attacking behind bars (not sure if it reminds her of when she was at the shelter and would paw people from her cage). She also loves attacking from above. If your head is below her, she will attack it. I discovered this first when we got a kitty tower that is about my height and put it near our front door. When I came home from work, she would try to attack my hair if I wasn't looking. I'd tell her 'no' and she'd get extremely upset with me and leave.

At one point after the first few months, she wasn't peeing in her litter box, again we were extremely worried so off to the vet we went. Vet said her bladder was empty so she was going somewhere. We discovered shortly after that she likes to pee in the bathtub. She has an obsession with water so she was always in the bathtub but then I caught her going in it. She does pee in her litter box but occasionally, I'll catch her peeing in the tub.

As for the water, she loves water. She loves drains. She will purr and rub against any faucet when you are near one. She will often sit outside of my shower and often jump into the shower as soon as I turn the water off. When she visits my In-laws, my mother-in-law will leave the faucet on a slow drip for her. We try not to encourage her anymore but there was a time when we would leave the faucet on for a moment for her to get water. She also loves soy yogurt and drinking water from random locations. And she loves eating random things but is very picky about her cat food. There is only 1 cat food she will eat of all the high quality cat foods I've tried.

Lola announces herself. She has a very loud purr and although it has lessened over the years, she would chirp whenever she jumped up on something. This includes our bed at night. You can hear her purr from 10 feet away sometimes.

We always knew we would get another pet but wanted to wait until we moved into a place with a backyard to get a dog. The first day we moved into our town home, Lola loved it. Lots of new places to explore and hide. She didn't run out of our apartment but the first thing she did when we moved was run out into the road and started rolling in the street. That ended her front door privileges. We have a deck and we wanted her to get some outdoor time but we soon learned she was an escape artist. So then we bought rabbit fencing but she learned how to escape our deck with that. Then we bought a kitty walk, which she hated (oh she also hated the walking harness I bought her). She gets some supervised outdoor time but its very contained as she wants to explore.

Which reminds me of the time that she escaped out the front door when we had a dog walker take care of our dogs while we did some long day trips while my parents were visiting. Lola comes when called. So if I don't see her and I knew someone had been in the house, I called to her and she didn't come within a minute or two. I knew something was wrong. So out the front door I went looking for her while my husband checked the house. After 10 minutes of walking the neighborhood calling for her, she stepped out of a bush and meowed at me. I picked her up, gave her lots of kisses and took her home.

Oh and speaking of dogs. When we got our first dog, the dog loved Lola and Lola was pretty accepting. I think it had a lot to do that we moved and got a dog on the same day. (We had found the dog a week prior to moving and had the rescue keep the dog until we moved). Then we got another cat and Lola was NOT happy. The feral wanna-be kitty in her came out. She started marking her 'territory' with poo. She'd leave the room whenever the other cat was there, she did a lot of hissing for the first few months. After a year or so though, things calmed down and they would take naps in the same room and such. They aren't snuggling buddies but they do play. Then we got another dog (a beagle)... Well our beagle dog is a playful pup. Lola takes this as weakness. She hides and attacks him. I've had to yell at her to leave him alone sometimes. She will set up attacks when she knows he is going to be some place.

She is an extremely smart cat. She is feisty. She is loving but in a 'I know how to get what I want' way. She isn't a lap cat but does like to be near you. My favorite moments are when I pick her up and she nuzzles my neck. She loves the outdoors, loves watching birds, squirrels and whatever else. I was telling my husband the other day that living with Lola reminds me of that Twilight Zone episode where everyone placates the super child that can kill with his mind. If you know what is good for you, you will do what Lola wants.

This is a pic of my baby on her snowman blankie

And this is her sleeping near her beagle

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.

I have a tortie, her name is Cordelia Chase, or Cordy, or mostly, Naughty.

She's quite a small cat, but still fights every giant Tom in the neighbourhood, and doesn't usually come off too badly... I put it down to her being able to just fit under our deck for quick escapes. She's very talkative and will let you know her opinion on everything.

The other day we caught her trying to drag a blackbird that she'd caught that was so big it wouldn't even fit through the cat door to display for us... needless to say, there was a lot of scrubbing to get the gore off. She also has a thing for giant bush spiders, I've been baled up in the kitchen with a hairy arachnid on the loose many a time with Naughty meowing proudly.

she looooves attention and once she's sat on you once, your lap is never yours again.

I realized that there is so much more that I can write about Lola but I have to contain myself. I don't know if anyone else has this with their cat, but she goes into werecat mode and runs around the house yowling. She wil run around and stop in one location to yowl then run around some more. This is also her prime attack time so if a dog or cat toy gets in the way, watch out.

She also loves being brushed so if she sees my husband get the furminator out, she'll follow him around meowing until she gets brushed. This morning was brushing time so I thought I had to share with you guys.

_________________You are all a disgrace to vegans. Go f*ck yourselves, especially linanil.

Patsy was pure mental (which I miss like crazy). She would stand on the bedside table and shout down the stairs until one of us went up to her and then jump on the bed and start rolling, purring her head off all the time.

She would also run back and forth in our upstairs corridor shouting her head off.

Crazy, crazy.

Mat.

_________________Lady Gaga and Beyonce should run her over with the kitten Wagon for that one comment alone - Torque (speaking of Katy Perry)

I've been told Bear is a tortie, but I've also been told she's a calico, so I'm not sure. She is definitely my most high maintenance kitty. Everything is on her terms. She rules the house and takes no crepe from the rest of the cats. Here's a picture of her with Butters from when she was a chubby little kitten. Her fur is a lot more brindle-looking now.

I have a tortie, her name is Cordelia Chase, or Cordy, or mostly, Naughty.

Bai! I love that you named your cat after a character on Buffy/Angel! So adorable!

And to answer the thread, @Dakini and I have tortie named Luna. She's very sweet and affectionate when she wants to be, but if you try to force any love on her, her 'Tude comes out and she pushes/looks the other way until it's over and then runs away and looks at you like "ew, human cooties"...She's very independent, however has her moments once in a blue moon where she just needs to be near you and will meow up a storm if you are not in the room she wants you to be in. How dare we leave her vicinity!

_________________The artist formerly known as delectApple... didja see what I did there?